Solved - Enermax T.B. Silence screw issue

hughtrimble · 6 Feb 2014 at 00:18

**SOLVED**

Evening all,

A nice Overclockers shipment arrived today, part of which was an Enermax T.B. Silence UCTB14B 140mm fan. This is my first attempt at building a desktop, so I hope I am just being simple and this is an easy fix.

I wish this to be the secondary fan on the front of my Corsair 330R case.

However, I cannot fathom how on earth the screws it came with are supposed to be used to attach it to the case! They're fat little dumpy things, whereas those on the other front fan are long slender screws almost three times the length. The main issue is just how fat the ones that came with it are - they seem too thick to fit in the attachment holes without a huge amount of force.

Am I missing something and these screws are to be forced in, or are these not the correct screws?

Any information at all would be much appreciated.

Hugh

Steampunk · 6 Feb 2014 at 00:43

The short fat screws are self tappers that came with the fan. If you had this fan in the back of your PC, you would hold the fan on the inside of the case, and then from the outside use the self tappers through the metal of the case, then have them cut into the plastic of the fan.

If the fan on the front of the case is on the outside of the chasis (but under the plastic front cover), you've probably got long screws that go through both the front and back of the fan, before screwing into the metal chasis of the case. These are what you need to attach the new fan, and you should have had more screws with the case itself.

hughtrimble · 6 Feb 2014 at 01:01

Steampunk said:
The short fat screws are self tappers that came with the fan. If you had this fan in the back of your PC, you would hold the fan on the inside of the case, and then from the outside use the self tappers through the metal of the case, then have them cut into the plastic of the fan.

If the fan on the front of the case is on the outside of the chasis (but under the plastic front cover), you've probably got long screws that go through both the front and back of the fan, before screwing into the metal chasis of the case. These are what you need to attach the new fan, and you should have had more screws with the case itself.

Aha! So those dumpy screws are designed to do that! Perfect. Thank you for the prompt reply.

The case did indeed come with more screws, neatly tucked away on one of the trays. Thank you.

foster grant · 6 Feb 2014 at 01:08

I have some of those fans..and I have now found that the screws (after only taking them out of my case twice for cleaning )..now have to be replaced...as when putting the fans back in the case a couple of the screws just go round and round ...never had that with any other fans before ...and im pretty sure i have not overly tightened them

hughtrimble · 6 Feb 2014 at 01:25

foster grant said:
I have some of those fans..and I have now found that the screws (after only taking them out of my case twice for cleaning )..now have to be replaced...as when putting the fans back in the case a couple of the screws just go round and round ...never had that with any other fans before ...and im pretty sure i have not overly tightened them

Is this when using the self tapping screws?

If so, isn't it more likely that the threads that you've effectively created in the plastic frame of the fan have stripped rather than the screws themselves? Some appropriately sized rawl plugs inserted into the now stripped fan holes may be of assistance, if I have understood your problem correctly.

foster grant · 6 Feb 2014 at 11:31

hughtrimble said:
Is this when using the self tapping screws?

If so, isn't it more likely that the threads that you've effectively created in the plastic frame of the fan have stripped rather than the screws themselves? Some appropriately sized rawl plugs inserted into the now stripped fan holes may be of assistance, if I have understood your problem correctly.

Yes....I think you're right

hughtrimble · 6 Feb 2014 at 11:40

foster grant said:
Yes....I think you're right

Hopefully that works for you.

Also, do you really need to remove the entire fan assembly frame and all from the tower to clean it? The specs state:

Click Mechanism
Detachable blades for easy cleaning from dust.

Which suggests you should be able to just remove the blades and clean them without ever needing to unscrew the frame. But I could be wrong - it's just my interpretation of what that means.

foster grant · 6 Feb 2014 at 12:07

Well the case I have is the Corsair Carbide Air 540 ..and the two front fans are on the inside of the case pulling air in , so it's not possible to remove just the blades